


R76 Valentine's Event - 2018

by LegendaryBard



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Mutual Support, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, golden era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 01:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13870308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegendaryBard/pseuds/LegendaryBard
Summary: Jack and Gabriel have stressful jobs. It's nice to get a break every once and a while.





	R76 Valentine's Event - 2018

Being Strike-Commander is  _ stressful.  _

It’s endless interviews, dinners, paperwork, and meeting various political and social figureheads. It’s having make-up people and wardrobe people and PR officials and carefully being monitored at every second to make sure there wouldn’t be an attempt on his life. It was going to parties with people he didn’t care about, talking about things he had to  _ pretend  _ to care about, and a lot of sitting in a chair staring at several screens for hours at a time while ordering people to do things he would much rather be doing himself, although he’s far too busy. 

It’s  _ maddening.  _ Sometimes he thinks Gabriel dodged being Strike-Commander on purpose, just to weasel out of dying a slow, agonizing, political death. He was always the smarter, craftier of the two of them. Thinking ahead and all that. It’s what made Gabriel a perfect partner in combat.

And a perfect partner out of it. Gabriel’s anticipated the stress that he’s under for his job and is all too happy to help him unwind. Whether it’s venting frustration ( Jack does that a lot- throwing pillows and nestling furiously into Gabriel’s chest, voice muffled as he complains about unyielding diplomats ) or communal relaxation ( there’s much to be said for lying together in the same room, just  _ enjoying  _ each other’s presence without talking or touching, really ) or physical gentleness ( Jack needs a professional masseuse, he really does, sitting all day messes up his shoulders, but Gabriel knows his way around Jack’s aching back, even if he does tease Jack about becoming an old man ) or escapism ( finding some hidey-hole in a far corner of the base and setting up a dinner or other romantic outing. )

Jack’s praying for an escape from endless piles of paperwork when Gabriel waltzes in. He declines to sit in the chair across from Jack, and instead drops his butt directly onto Jack’s desk, grinning like a fox.

“What’re you workin’ on?” He asks, tone silky. 

Jack can’t help it- he snorts, self-pitying. “ _ Budgeting.”  _

“Put an extra couple of zeros in the funds for Blackwatch, pretty please?”

“I am  _ not  _ doing that.” 

“Worth a shot,” Gabriel’s shrug is light, careless. “Don’t you have office monkeys do do this for you?” 

“Yes and no. My draft of the budget is the first one. It’ll go through two dozen other people who want to put more money in their division and cut from others, then it’ll come back to me and I’ll slash some funds and somebody’ll come and complain to me until nobody’s happy and democracy wins.” Jack sighs, cupping his chin with his palm. “I hate bureaucracy.” 

Gabriel gets up off the desk- circles around until he’s behind Jack, puts his chin on the Strike-Commander’s shoulder, and puts his arms around him. It’s a little awkward, due to the back of the chair being in the way, but they make it work.

“If anybody’s gonna put up with it, it’s you,” Gabriel says. His beard tickles Jack’s clean-shaven jaw with every word. Jack turns his head, presses a kiss to his cheekbone. Gabriel makes a pleased little sound. 

“You know, we could take a little break,” Gabriel suggests. 

“We?” Jack’s eyebrows arch.

“You think you’re the only one who has to budget shit? Blackwatch’s doing bigger ops than Overwatch ever did and it’s working with a quarter of the funds.” Gabriel huffs. “I actually came over to give you my budget plan.” 

He unwraps one of his arms from around Jack- stretches it out and drops a shiny silver disc on Jack’s desk. A storage drive. 

“Sorry,” Jack murmurs. He leans his head against Gabriel’s in acknowledgement, and to a lesser extent, apology. “I’ll see if I can squeeze some money from…  _ Somewhere.”  _

“Try the engineering division,” Gabriel suggests. 

“No. God, no, Torbjorn’ll kill me.” 

Gabriel sniggers. “Why do you think I suggested it? I’d love to watch him beat your kneecaps with a wrench.” 

Jack snorts. “Ha  _ ha _ . Real funny, Gabe. But, seriously. I’ll see what I can do...” 

Gabriel plants a solid kiss to his cheek. “Don’t worry about it too hard, Jack. Blackwatch has  _ always  _ operated on a shoestring budget- We can handle it.”    
  
He straightens up, steps a little back, and offers out his hand to Jack. Jack deactivates the holo-screens hovering around his desk and takes it, surging to his feet with a groan.

“Ahh,  _ fuck,  _ my back,” Jack gripes. “Whatever we’re doing on ‘break’ had better not involve spine flexibility.” 

“It doesn’t,” Gabriel assures him. “I was  _ thinking  _ we could hole up somewhere. Have a little cuddle break.” 

Gabriel’s a cuddler. Jack was lukewarm to the idea when they first became a couple, but it relaxes Gabriel like nothing else on this earth can, so Jack’s adjusted to it and… Finds himself liking it a lot, actually. Gabriel claims it’s  _ comforting  _ being able to hold Jack to his chest, make sure he’s okay. Jack’s comforted by it, too- even before they were in a relationship, Gabriel was at his back during SEP, and he feels at ease with Gabriel’s reassuring weight pressed against him. 

“Your room or mine?” Jack says. It’s probably not a good idea to stay away from his budgeting for long- he has a timetable, a schedule, there’s always more work to catch up on- but right now, he  _ really  _ doesn’t care. Gabriel wants to cuddle and Jack doesn’t want to work so  _ hell  _ if he’s going to go back to juggling numbers. 

“Mine,” Gabriel decides. “Less prying eyes. You get diplomats banging on your door every damn day of the week.” 

Jack nods, conceding to that- as the leader of Overwatch, privacy and peace are rare commodities. There’s so many people trying to bite into his time that there’s a four-week long queue, and some journalists or politicians with real initiative will bang on his door until security escorts them out.

They keep a respectable distance from one another as they head to the dorms- while it’s not exactly a secret that they’re together ( in a strange kind of capacity- their relationship isn’t boyfriend and boyfriend or husband and husband, or even fiances- they’re kind of just… nebulous lovers ) they don’t like making a big show of it. Neither of them want to give tabloids any ammunition for a scandal. 

Gabriel slips into his room. Jack’s right behind him.

Their rooms are small. No grandioseness, no huge beds, no arrays of personal decorum. Gabriel’s room is regulation blue, the same way every other one is ( Gabriel viciously lobbied to get it painted, but he was ignored and reprimanded when he tried to sneak paint in to do it himself ). The only burst of personality comes from his bed and the nearby walls- black blankets and pillows, a handful of posters betraying Gabriel’s love of bands that Jack would decry as being ‘noise’ or too ‘emo’. Gabriel’s room is, for the most part, clean- trashcan clear of stuff and his clothes put away in his dresser. The sleeve of a dark grey hoodie pokes from the drawer, suggesting he’s  _ clean  _ but not  _ immaculate.  _

Jack drops onto the bed and throws out his arms- Gabriel takes that as an invitation and immediately buries his way into Jack’s chest and neck.

“You know, there’s  _ real science  _ supporting daily hugging,” Jack murmurs. He gingerly wraps his arms around Gabriel’s waist- slowly lowers until he’s flat on his back, flush with the thick blanket. Gabriel’s weight above him is sturdy, welcoming. 

“Yeah. Serotonin and oxytocin and all that shit,” Gabriel’s voice is muffled. He presses a kiss to Jack’s collarbone and slides his lips up from Jack’s shoulder to his neck- Jack twitches and has to try not to giggle, the scratchiness of the beard against his throat  _ tickles.  _ “This okay on your back?” 

“Yeah,” He murmurs. Gabriel’s hands wiggle between the mattress and Jack’s back- and god  _ damn,  _ he loves it, Gabriel’s careful kisses across his skin and his strong arms around him and his  _ weight  _ on top of him-

“Fuck, I love you,” Gabriel says, lips softly brushing against his throat. “You know that, right?” 

“Yeah,” Jack squeezes Gabriel closer to him, can feel the commander’s chest push in and outward when he makes a blissful noise. “I love you too, Gabe.” 

“D’you think we could make this cuddle break into a cuddle weekend?” Gabriel asks, glancing up at him through lowered eyelids. 

“It’s Wednesday,” Jack says, though what he  _ really  _ wants to say is yes. 

“Cuddle week,” Gabriel amends. 

“Sure,” Jack murmurs. “No objections from me.” 

He knows, realistically, that he can’t completely abandon his job in order to snuggle Gabriel all damned day. 

But for right now, he wants to pretend it’s possible. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was for my R76 Valentine's Event, a gift to zeldaanimelover on tumblr. Uploading here just so you guys get the chance to see it too.


End file.
